Boyfriend Bargain

I was issued a warning: stay away from Ben Rosenberg. As Clifton Cove's resident "king", he thinks he's entitled to anyone and anything. The trouble is, I've spent my whole life following the rules and playing it safe. I know what it feels like to be the good girl. I'm the police chief's daughter and a librarian - for adorable children, no less. An all-nighter with a fictional hunk is about as exciting as my life gets until one day, fate decides to take pity on me and shove me straight into the path of Mr. Off-Limits himself.

WSJ best-selling author Ilsa Madden-Mills returns with an all-new enemies-to-lovers second-chance romance between the football hottie and the feisty nerd girl he can’t forget.

It started out like any normal day. Then the fender bender happened. The guy I collided with drove an expensive car and was drop-dead gorgeous. Too bad he was also a total jerk. We argued over whose fault it was and any other thing that came out of his condescending mouth. Eventually, the police came and we went our separate ways. The insurance companies would have to figure things out. I had a job interview to get to anyway - one I was excited about. Though that excitement changed to disappointment the moment the person interviewing me walked in. The guy from the accident. 

They say love and hate are the same feelings experienced under different circumstances, and it's true. The man who comes to me in my dreams also haunts me in my nightmares. He is a brilliant lawyer. A skilled criminal. A beautiful liar. A bully and a savior, a monster and a lover. Ten years ago, he made me run away from the small town where we lived. Now, he came for me in New York, and he isn't leaving until he takes me with him.

They say revenge is a dish best served cold. I’d had four years to stew on what Daria Followhill did to me...now my heart was completely iced. I took her first kiss. She took the only thing I loved. I was poor. She was rich. The good thing about circumstances? They can change. Fast. Now, I’m her parents’ latest shiny project. Her housemate. Her tormentor. The captain of the rival football team she hates so much. Yeah, baby girl, say it. I’m your foster brother. There’s a price to pay for ruining the only good thing in my life. She’s about to shell out some serious tears.

It was the summer of my life. I’d met the guy of my dreams. Unfortunately, he was the son of my uppity employer - and very much off-limits. But Gavin was a rebel. He knew his mother would disown him if she found out about us; in his eyes, we just had to be careful. He never treated me as his mother did - like hired help. Instead, Gavin put me on a pedestal and loved me harder than I’d ever been loved in my life. 

Bennett Fox walked into my life on one hell of a crappy Monday morning. I was late for the first day at my new job - a job I’d now have to compete for, even though I’d already worked eight years to earn it, because of an unexpected merger. While I lugged my belongings up to my new office, a meter maid wrote me a parking summons. She’d ticketed a long line of cars - except for the Audi parked in front of me, which happened to be the same make and model as mine. Annoyed, I decided to regift my ticket to the car that had evaded a fine.

I’m desperate and destitute when Lockwood Construction rolls into my small town with an offer too good to pass up: high wages to any able-bodied man willing to join their crew. Say no more. I throw on baggy clothes, tuck my long hair under a baseball hat, and apply for a job. Unfortunately, my half-baked idea of disguising myself as a guy is flawed from the beginning. As Shakira says, these hips don’t lie.  Still, I like to think I might have pulled the whole thing off save for one thing: I know my boss.

Ryker Voss. Football star. Walks on water and God's gift to women. Just ask him. He promises Penelope Graham, lover of sparkly vampires and calculus, he’ll win her the heart of the guy she’s been crushing on. His plan - good old-fashioned jealousy. Once her crush sees her kissing Ryker, he'll realize what he's missing. Penelope knows she shouldn’t trust a cocky jock, but what’s a girl to do when she needs help getting a date? And Ryker’s keeping a secret, another bet, one that will destroy Penelope’s heart forever.

I asked for his criteria for bed buddies - that's the PG version. He swore at me and said he didn’t do groupies. And just like that, our friendship was off to a great start. Reese Forster was the starting point guard for the Seattle Thunder. Gorgeous. Cocky. Loved by the nation. He’s also attending preseason basketball training camp where I used to work.   

Hailee Raine only has to survive one more year. One year of life in her football obsessed town. One year of nauseating school spirit. Just one more year of her cruel step-brother Jason; and his cocky, arrogant, football-playing friends. She hates them. Especially, Cameron Chase, the guy she thought was different. Cameron Chase has the world at his feet. He has it all; good looks, talent, and the charm to go with it. He has colleges lined up at the door, all wanting a piece of Rixon Raiders star wide receiver.

What's a man to do when the one who got away comes roaring back into his life, working smack dab next to him in the same office? Resist, of course. Especially since the woman I want happens to be my boss’ daughter. But when captivating, brilliant, sexy-as-sin Sloane issues me a challenge make her purr like no man has done before - I don't say no. I say, how about seven nights of O lessons? And at the end, we'll walk away. 

Jack and I, we did everything backward. The day he lured me into his office - which was also the first day we met - he proposed. You'd think a guy who looked like him - a bit cold maybe, but still striking and very unattainable - would only ask the love of his life to marry him, right? You'd think he must be madly in love.

Cleopatra Paige hates one thing in this world - just one - and his name is Zachariah Prince. In grade school, he pulled at her pigtails. In middle school, he spread false rumors about her. And in high school, he ruined her prom. She hates that his smirks are unfairly sexy. And she definitely loathes that his dark eyes seem to follow her everywhere. Sometimes, even in her dreams. It doesn't matter that he's rich and popular, or that he lives in a freaking mansion full of butlers and maids. He's rude and arrogant, and she wants to stay as far away from him as possible

"Girls like you aren't exactly welcomed at a place like this, so keep your head down and look the other way." Those were the exact words of my social worker when she dropped me in my newest hellhole, a place for "troubled teens". I didn't listen, and now I'm on their radar. Too bad for them, I don't follow rules. Too bad for me, they're determined to make sure I do. Inconceivably attractive and treated like kings...these are the boys of Brayshaw High.